Qualla: Lough Corrib

Lough Corrib: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JoachimKohler-HB, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the twelfth century, before either Norman keep or Tudor plantation, monks at the south end of Lough Corrib cut a channel through limestone to let boats reach the sea at Galway. The Friar's Cut, as it came to be called, was the first canal ever excavated on the island of Ireland. It has been working continuously for more than 800 years. Lough Corrib stretches north from that cut for 176 square kilometres, the largest lake in the Republic of Ireland and the second largest on the island after Lough Neagh. It contains, by the most recent careful count, 1,327 islands. Folklore had it as 365, one for each day of the year, but a surveyor with sonar pushed the actual figure into four digits.

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Image: JoachimKohler-HB | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lough Corrib: The Lake of the Sea God

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trish Steel, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Irish name Loch Coirib derives from an earlier form, Loch Oirbsean. According to the placename traditions of medieval Ireland, Oirbsen was another name for Manannan mac Lir, the Tuatha De Danann figure who served as a god of the sea. The lake bears his name. In modern Irish i...

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Image: Trish Steel | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lough Corrib: Viking Axes Under the Water

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trish Steel, CC BY-SA 2.0. Since 2007, a local surveyor and cartographer has been creating up-to-date charts of Lough Corrib using modern sonar equipment. The work has uncovered objects of major archaeological significance. The Annaghkeen Boat, found by the survey, is 40 feet in length and intricately carv...

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Image: Trish Steel | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lough Corrib: The Pirate Queen's Castle on a Rock

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. On a small rocky island in the upper lough, between Maam and Doon, stands Hen's Castle, in Irish Caislean-na-Circe, a fortification of the medieval O'Connors and O'Flahertys. The castle's most famous resident was Grainne O'Malley, known as the pirate queen of Connacht, who lived ...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Lough Corrib: Inchagoil and the Hermits

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Störfix, CC BY-SA 3.0. Midway between Cong and Oughterard lies Inchagoil Island, one of the largest of the wooded islands in the lough. It holds two churches: one dedicated to Saint Patrick and a twelfth-century structure known as the Saints' Church. The island shows evidence of an early monastic settl...

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Image: Störfix | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lough Corrib: The Wildes Wrote It Down

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit C Michael Hogan, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1867, William Wilde published Lough Corrib, its Shores and Islands, a comprehensive antiquarian study of the lake's archaeology, history, and topography. Wilde, a leading surgeon as well as a serious historian, built a summerhouse on the lough's banks called Moytura House. His...

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Image: C Michael Hogan | CC BY-SA 2.0